Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:11, 16 June 2025

Revision as of 13:11, 16 June 2025

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{{short description|Wikipedia editing guideline}}

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{{short description|none}}

{{Redirect|WP:TECHNICAL}}

{{subcat guideline|editing guideline|Make technical|WP:MTAU|WP:TECHNICAL}}

{{nutshell|Strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material.}}

{{Guideline list}}

Wikipedia articles should be written for the [[Wikipedia:AUDIENCE|widest possible general audience]].

As a free encyclopedia, Wikipedia serves readers with a wide range in backgrounds, interests, and goals. Even for articles about the most technically demanding subjects, these readers include students and curious laypeople in addition to experts. While upholding the goals of accuracy and full coverage of the most important aspects of a topic, every effort should be made to also make articles accessible and pleasant to read for less-prepared readers. It is especially important to make the [[WP:LEAD|lead section]] understandable using plain language, and it is often helpful to begin with more common and accessible subtopics, then proceed to those requiring advanced knowledge or addressing niche specialties.

Articles should be written in encyclopedic style, but this differs from the technically dense style found in scholarly writing aimed at specialists. Articles should address the topic without twisting the truth or telling "[[Lie-to-children|lies-to-children]]", but should also minimise (unexplained) [[jargon]] and not take prior knowledge for granted. Articles should be self-contained as much as possible, rather than relying on excessive links to explain unfamiliar concepts.

== Audience ==